Hot dogs all over the world

As John noted last night, Barack Obama’s formulaic denunciation of the Iranian crackdown stopped short of giving up on his hot dog diplomacy with Iran. FOX News reports:

Iranians will have to decide whether they want to attend Fourth of July celebrations at U.S. embassies, President Obama said Tuesday, linking their attendance to the potential for warming between the two nations.

The United States and Iran don’t have formal diplomatic relations but Obama said that it’s up to the Iranian diplomats to decide whether to use an invitation to attend embassy festivities as an opening.

“I think that we have said that if Iran chooses a path that abides by international norms and principles, then we are interested in healing some of the wounds of 30 years in terms of U.S.-Iranian relations. But that is a choice that the Iranians are going to have to make,” Obama said during a press conference in the White House briefing room.

This would be laughable if it weren’t so pathetic. It strikes me as a graphic image of Obama’s cluelessness that should stick if anyone is paying attention.

Indeed, there is substance to the image of Obama’s hot dog diplomacy. Andrew McCarthy reports that even as the mullahs are terrorizing the Iranian people, the Obama administration is negotiating with an Iranian-backed terrorist organization and abandoning the American proscription against exchanging terrorist prisoners for hostages kidnapped by terrorists. Is anyone paying attention?